


Whilst Our Souls Negotiate There

by dancinbutterfly



Series: The Ecstasy [10]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, M/M, Reunions, Russians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 05:29:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15678966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: Zhenya goes home to Russia for the first time after winning the Stanley Cup. Surprising no one but him, someone is waiting for him.





	Whilst Our Souls Negotiate There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PoetsReach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoetsReach/gifts).



> Done for neuralreach, who wanted to see Dima and Zhenya's first reunion and a hopeful ending in universe (rather than an AU where things are magically fixed).

Someone, (his mother it had to be his mother because who else loved and hated him enough to do this to him, honestly) had called Dima. He got off the two days worth of planes in Magnitigorsk and another two hours of taxis at the Brutalist tower block his parents refused to move out of and there he was, standing in the middle of the entryway in his parents' apartment, like he belonged there. 

He is still shorter than Zhenya, but by almost four inches now with his last growth spurt. He's also thinner than he’d ever been and with eyes so dark that Zhenya had to wonder if they’d always been that way and he’d forgotten them or if they’d changed in the intervening years. He wasn’t smiling and he didn’t join his father or Denis in the crush of hugs. 

He just stands there, existing in the home that Zhenya has had to remember without seeing, looking too well-pressed and smelling like- well. Smelling like all the sex Zhenya's wasted on other people frankly. 

“You need to rest, Zhenya," Natalia practically coos. "We’re going to go get dinner. You unpack. Boys,” this she directs at Denis and his father and pointedly not at Dima. “Lets go. You’re driving me. We’ll pick up his favorites.”

“But we went grocery shopping this morning.” Denis says, confused. Zhenya watches as his mother crosses the room to his brother wiggles her finger at him, beckoning him down to her height. Once he’s far enough over, she grabs his ear and drags him out the door, cursing every step of the way. His father sighs, picks up the keys and makes to follow them out.

“If you need us to stay with Aunt Vanya and Uncle Feydka, text us, alright? Soon as you can.” He’s gone before Zhenya can say that he won’t, that Dima is leaving, that there’s no reason at all for them to go. The door clicks shut behind his father with a finality that feels like the kind of crushing reality that is every awful thing hoisting the Cup was not. 

Zhenya clenches his fists and takes a deep breath in through his mouth. If he inhales through his nose, he’ll smell him and he’ll break. “Get out of my house.”

“All right.” Dima nods and actually smiles, even as he shoves his hands in his coat pockets and makes to move towards the door. 

Zhenya feels anger rise in him. 

“What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re lying to me now?” He’d rather Dima have just hit him. It would have been kinder. 

Dima shakes his head. “I’m sorry. It’s not nothing. It’s just. You.” He smiles. “I missed you Zhenya, that’s all.”

“You missed me being angry with you?”

“Yes,” Dima laughs, actually laughs at him. It’s been three years, but Dima laughing at him when Zhenya is overwrought is typical.

“Fuck you.” 

“I know, I know!” He laughs, harder now, tears spilling from his eyes. He’s laughing but he’s not laughing like Zhenya remembers from the hotel room or the dacha or their phone calls. It’s a hysterical laughter, edged in panic and breaking into sobs. “I know, Zhenya, fuck.”

The Alphas he’s around in America and Canada don’t cry, at least not the way Dima does. They cry when something twists or hits wrong on the ice. They cry when they lose in a way that is stupid or silly or so close they should have made it. He’s seen the toughest Alphas in North America be it player, parent or mate, tear up over an unexpected and unwelcome trade. Sid cries when Taylor does something really nice for him that he didn’t ask for or when one of the Little Penguins asks for a hug and he saw Nathalie cry once, when her father got sick and had to be rushed to the hospital but they don’t cry like this, an open tap of pure feeling pouring where his feelings leak out his eyes and roll down his face on delivered for Zhenya’s to take or leave as he sees fit.

“Metiya.”

“You’re so amazing, Zhenya, you know? I watch you play and I see you give interviews about playing openly as Omega in the NHL and about your charity work and I’m so fucking proud of you. I stalk your twitter for pictures of you and Jeffery and see you smiling at those insane little outings the PR team makes you do from wherever I am and I can’t believe how lucky I was that you let me love you at all .”

Getting hit is part of Zhenya’s career. He gets paid millions of dollars for it. He’s been getting beaten to shit since before he could tie his skates by himself. He survived watched Dima walk away from him in Helsinki and didn’t beg him to come back. He really did think he was better trained at taking a blow than this. “I didn’t ask you to stop.” Dima nods in agreement, staring down at the ground. Zhenya crosses to him because not being close has been the worst part of this whole thing. He grabs his shoulders and shoves. “Hey.” He cannot reiterate that he begged Dima to stay. It was pathetic then, it’s pathetic now and he’s not a weak child anymore. He’s grown, a warrior at the top of his game who everyone wants. He isn’t going to beg ever again. “I didn’t do that.”

“I know that. This isn’t something I wanted to put on you but your mother asked me to come, Zhenya. She insisted.”

Which, yes, does explain everything. Neither of them know how to say no to her. 

“I’m so proud of you. You’re glorious. I knew you would be and when she asked me to come, I couldn’t say no because I wanted to a chance to tell you that, even though you know that. You never needed anyone to tell you you’re the best.” He rubs the back of his neck and Zhenya watches, hypnotized by that big hand that always felt so right on his skin. “I always told you I wasn’t a good guy and when she gave me a chance to see you, with your dreams realized, I had to take it. I didn’t care if it would hurt you. I’m a greedy asshole that way.”

Zhenya sags because yeah, that’s pretty classic Dima. He shakes his shoulders again and he flops in his hands like a rag doll. “Stop trying to be a good guy. I never wanted you to be good, Metiya. I just wanted you to be mine.”

Dima doesn’t say anything just tips forward the few inches between them to press his forward against Zhenya’s shoulder. It’s nothing Zhenya can bank on, but it is certainly something.


End file.
